Bush seeks funds for Iraqi partners
UPI, United Press Int’l
February 9, 2005 Wednesday 3:43 PM EST
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — President George W. Bush will ask Congress for
$400 million to help the military capability of some nations helping
in Iraq, the White House said Wednesday.
The funding would be part of the $81 billion supplemental funding
request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan he was to
send to Capitol Hill soon.
It was not immediately clear, however, if the $400 million would be
wrapped into the $81 billion figure or added to it.
“The nest hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom
in all the world,” a news release quoted the president. “Our closest
partners agree. For many of these partners, now vibrant democracies
and staunch allies, the tragedy of tyranny is a painful chapter in
their own receipt histories.”
Some 28 nations have troops in Iraq. Among them are former Soviet
satellite states such as Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia and Armenia —
all countries with limited military resources. Their contingents
range from a few dozen soldiers to Poland’s 2,400, of which 800 are
being withdrawn soon.
The United States has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and Britain more
than 8,000. The total multinational force is about 29,000.

Armenia DM talks on Caucasus, bilateral relations in Iran
By Konstantin Kazeyev
ITAR-TASS News Agency
February 9, 2005 Wednesday
TEHERAN, February 9 — The situation in the Caucasus and issues of
bilateral relations were in the focus of attention at talks Armenian
Defence Minister and National Security Secretary Serzh Sarkisyan held
with Iranian officials.
Sarkisyan arrived in Teheran on a visit on Tuesday and held talks
with President Mohammad Khatami, Secretary of the Supreme National
Security Council Hasan Rowhani and Chairman of the Expediency Council
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The regional current problems could be solved without interference
of outside states, the sides stressed at the talks. Iran expressed
readiness to undertake a mediator mission in the Karabakh crisis
settlement that should be resolved peacefully, the Iranian leadership
is certain.
Cooperation between Yerevan and Teheran is aimed at ensuring security
at stability in the region, Khatami stressed.
The sides gave major attention to cooperation in the transport sphere,
in particular, to the project of connecting the two countries’
railway networks.
The Iranian president emphasised the importance of creating the
North-South transport corridor important for the development of
regional integration.
The sides stated the intention to accelerate the implementation of
projects on the transportation of Iranian gas and Iranian electric
power supply to Armenia.

CIS commanders drill joint use of CIS air defence system
ITAR-TASS News Agency
February 9, 2005 Wednesday
MOSCOW, February 9 — CIS commanders-in-chief of the air force and
air defence systems attended practical lectures on the joint use of
the troops of the CIS air defence system on Wednesday.
The drill is organized at the initiative of the Russian Air Force
Command and is held during an assembly of CIS commanders-in-chief
and commanders of the air force and air defence systems that began
on Tuesday.
“Partakers in the assembly flied to Rzhev in the Tver region on
Wednesday morning and practiced the equipping of a command post of
the tactical unit of the air defence system that fulfills tasks in the
CIS air defence system,” head of the Russian Air Force press service
Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. Members of
the coordinating committee also visited the Rzhev-based aviation plant.
“The drill will be continued in the Star City on Wednesday afternoon,
where partakers in the assembly will familiarize with the methods
and the material and technical basis of cosmonauts’ training,”
Drobyshevsky pointed out.
He also noted that CIS commanders-in-chief of the air force and air
defence systems of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan will take part in a solemn
meeting that is devoted to the tenth anniversary of the creation of
the CIS air defence system in Moscow on February 10.

Minister of Health meets Paghdasarian
Bahrain News Agency
February 9, 2005 Wednesday 6:58 PM EST
Manama, February 09 — Health Minister Dr. Nada Hafadh met here today
with Chairman of the Armenian Parliament, Artur Paghdasarian and his
accompanying delegation, currently visiting the Kingdom.
Dr.Hafadh expressed interest for further cooperation with Armenia
mainly in health and medical fields.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenia felicitates Iran on anniversary
IRNA, Iran
February 9, 2005 Wednesday 2:19 PM EST
Tehran, February 09 — Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan
Wednesday sent a message to Iran`s First Vice-President Mohammad-Reza
Aref, felicitating him on the 26th victory anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution.
In his message, Markaryan expressed hope that cooperation between
the two countries based on mutual respect would serve to enhance
Armenia-Iran relations in various fields.
Chairman of Armenia`s National Assembly Artur Bagdasaryan sent a
message to Iran`s Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel
and lawmakers, congratulating them on the auspicious event.
In his message, he called for promotion of relations between the two
countries` parliaments with an aim of restoring peace and stability
to the region.

Armenia detains spy on charges of serving Azeri secret service
Assa-Irada
Feb 10 2005
Baku, February 9, AssA-Irada
Armenia has detained an agent of the Azerbaijani secret service,
Armenia’s PanArmenian news agency reported.
“As a result of the operations carried out by the Armenian national
security service, an Azerbaijani agent was arrested”, the source
said.
The detained individual is an Armenian citizen, whose name is not
disclosed due to the ongoing investigation.
A criminal case has been started according to the “High treason
through espionage” article, the same source said.*
–Boundary_(ID_+OFfbAygXBDRFk4KNkOewg)–

Assa-Irada
Feb 10 2005
Turkish speaker says Russia may play major role in conflict
settlement
Baku, February 9, AssA-Irada
Ankara is interested in developing relations with neighboring states,
Turkish parliament speaker, Bulent Arinc, told a news conference
prior to leaving Baku on Wednesday. The strengthening of Azerbaijan,
a Turkic nation, is a result of the proper policy pursued by its
government, he said.
Speaking of Armenia’s policy of aggression, Arinc said that this
country, which is adhering to a non-constructive stance, is not
interested in the conflict resolution. He added that with the
developing Turkey-Russia relations, Kremlin may play a major role in
settling the conflict in the future.*
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA)
February 10, 2005, Thursday
Democracy rising in ex-Soviet states
By Fred Weir Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Aftershocks of Ukraine and Georgia are stirring up rallies in Central
Asia.
The peaceful street revolts that recently brought democratic change
to Georgia and Ukraine could spawn copy-cat upheavals against
authoritarian regimes across the former Soviet Union, experts say.
Waving orange scarves and banners – the colors of Ukraine’s
revolution – dozens of Uzbeks demonstrated in the capital Tashkent
last week over the demolition of their homes to make way for border
fencing.
According to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the protest
compelled the autocratic government of Islam Karimov, widely
condemned for human rights abuses, to pay compensation.
In Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, hundreds of pro-democracy
activists rallied on Saturday to demand that upcoming parliamentary
elections be free and fair.
>>From Kyrgyzstan on the Chinese border to Moldova, where Europe’s only
ruling Communist Party faces elections next month, opposition parties
are eagerly studying Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” and Ukraine’s
“Orange Revolution,” which led to the triumph of pro-democracy
forces. Opposition groups are even selecting symbols for their
banners when the moment arrives – tulips for the Kyrgyz opposition,
grapes for Moldova’s anticommunists.
“The recent events in Ukraine have made people everywhere understand
that taking to the streets gets the authorities’ attention,” says
Tatiana Poloskova, deputy director of the independent Institute of
Modern Diaspora, which studies Russian minorities in former Soviet
countries.
Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili and newly inaugurated
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko were clearly addressing their
former Soviet colleagues last month when they hailed their revolts as
the leading edge of “a new wave of liberation that will lead to the
final victory of freedom and democracy on the continent of Europe.”
The prospect has sent shudders through the Kremlin, still smarting
from the “loss” of pro-Moscow regimes in Georgia and Ukraine, and
reeling in the face of its own grass-roots revolt by pensioners
protesting cuts in social services. For Russia, where authoritarian
methods have been taking root under President Vladimir Putin, the
prospect of pro-democracy rebellions sweeping the former Soviet Union
seems to threaten the underpinnings of domestic stability. The
pro-Western bent of the new regimes in Ukraine and Georgia may also
threaten the economic ties Russia has built with post-Soviet regimes
from Armenia to Uzbekistan.
First in line could be Kyrgyzstan, where any official attempt to rig
parliamentary elections slated for Feb. 27 could trigger Ukrainian
popular action. Strongman Askar Akayev, who’s ruled the tiny central
Asian state for the past 15 years, has already faced street
demonstrations over a failed attempt to ban his chief opponent from
the parliamentary race. Mr. Akayev has pledged to step down in
October, and appears to be grooming his daughter, Bermet, to succeed
him. After a recent Moscow visit with Vladimir Putin, Akayev warned
that if the opposition takes to the streets, “it would lead to civil
war.”
But some Russian experts see a “Tulip Revolution” in the near future
for Kyrgyzstan, which hosts both Russian and US military bases.
“Akayev is lost,” says Alexei Malashenko, an expert with the Carnegie
Center in Moscow. “The opposition is strong, well-organized, and has
international as well as domestic backing.”
The Kremlin may fear that political ferment in Kyrgyzstan could
spread to more important allies in central Asia. The long-time leader
of oil-rich Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has fixed elections
and changed the Constitution to extend his rule, last month dissolved
the leading opposition party after it sent a delegation to Ukraine to
study the Orange Revolution. He also moved to close down a local
institute funded by global financier George Soros, who has backed
pro-democracy movements in Ukraine and elsewhere.
In Uzbekistan, which also hosts a key US military base, President
Karimov, a former Soviet politburo member, has ruled with an iron
fist since the demise of the USSR. Karimov recently jeered publicly
at those “who are dying to see that the way the elites in Georgia and
Ukraine changed becomes a model to be emulated in other countries.”
He warned bluntly: “We have the necessary force for that.”
Some experts argue that, while velvet revolution may be possible in
semi-authoritarian Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it is a very distant
prospect in Uzbekistan because democracy and civil society are barely
developed there. Last week’s protests in Tashkent, though based on a
narrow economic issue, hint that instability may lie just beneath the
regime’s tough and orderly surface.
Uzbekistan’s gas-rich neighbor, Turkmenistan, is run by a North
Korean-style dictatorship that permits no dissent of any kind. “In
absolutely authoritarian regimes like [Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan]
the threat of ‘Orange Revolution’ is just used by the leaders to
crack down harder,” says Masha Lipman, an expert with the Carnegie
Center in Moscow. “There is no chance for the opposition to actually
organize anything, much less a revolution.”
That paradox may help to explain why Georgians were able to rally
successfully against the lethargic regime of Eduard Shevardnadze,
when it attempted to rig the 2003 parliamentary polls, while
protesters in neighboring Azerbaijan were put down when the much more
efficient dictatorship of Gaidar Aliyev imposed the succession of his
son, Ilham, through fraudulent elections just a month earlier.
Ukrainians were able to successfully mobilize against vote-rigging
late last year in part because Ukraine had relatively free
institutions, including a parliament and Supreme Court that the
president was not able to control. In next-door Belarus, which US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labeled “the last outpost of
tyranny in Europe,” dictator Alexander Lukashenko has crushed the
opposition and banished nongovernmental organizations, and looks set
to be handily reelected in showpiece elections later this year.
But an upsurge looks increasingly likely in ex-Soviet Moldova, where
Communist President Vladimir Voronin has lost Moscow support. He
faces a strong challenge in next month’s parliamentary elections from
the pro-Western Christian Democrats, who reportedly are sporting
orange scarves and flags in the capital.
“The Kremlin suddenly finds itself severely challenged to change its
strategies, both at home and in former Soviet countries,” says Sergei
Kazyonnov, an expert with the independent Institute for National
Security and Strategic Research in Moscow. “It can go on depending on
political manipulations and under-the-carpet deals with local elites.
But it is already becoming obvious that there are just too many
different realities here, and an unworkable multiplicity of carpets.”

Russian foreign minister to visit Armenia
RosBusinessConsulting Database
February 10, 2005 Thursday 2:04 am, EST
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov will discuss the duration of
President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Armenia in the course of his visit
to this republic. According to the ARKA news agency, Armenian foreign
minister Vartan Oskanian said Putin had accepted Armenian leader Robert
Kocharian’s invitation and would visit the republic in the near future.
As reported earlier, Lavrov’s visit to Armenia is scheduled for
February 17.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
February 9, 2005, Wednesday
ARMENIA LEFT WITHOUT ALLIES
SOURCE: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 7, 2005, p. 11
by Viktoria Panfilova
RESOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY ON KARABAKH IS PUTTING
ARMENIA IN A TIGHT CORNER
Foreign ministers of Armenia (Vardan Oskanjan) and Azerbaijan (Elmar
Mamedjarov) will meet in Prague to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh
problem on March 2. Most observers believe that the meeting of the
diplomats representing warring parties will take place in the
situation favoring Azerbaijan. Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly
a week ago passed a resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh, putting official
Yerevan in a difficult position.
The Strasbourg Resolution based on the report made by David Atkinson
(Great Britain) upset Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh but elated
Azerbaijan. To quote President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, “Baku did
it, the report to the Parliamentary Assembly recognizes the fact of
occupation of a part of Azerbaijani lands by Armenia.” Indeed, this
is the first official international document to call Armenia an
aggressor. Moreover, Atkinson in his comments denied Nagorno-Karabakh
the right to self-determination. “If Azerbaijan agreed to give
Nagorno-Karabakh sovereignty, the European Union will not object,” he
said. “It is clear, however, that the authorities of Azerbaijan will
never give their consent to it.”
A better gift to Azerbaijan cannot be imagined. No wonder official
Yerevan immediately said that, “Atkinson’s report reeks of oil”,
clearly hinting at the interest of the West in the Caspian energy
resources.
Atkinson’s report gives Armenia something to ponder. The failure of
the Armenian diplomacy is clear even though official Yerevan is
speaking of “diplomatic triumph” to muffle it.
Armenian experts are convinced that the fiasco is a corollary of the
faulty concept defining Yerevan’s stand on the matter in the last
several years. Between 1988, when the confrontation began and the
late 1990’s, the problem of Karabakh was viewed on all levels as the
struggle of local Armenians for self-determination and the
self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh was a fully fledged
participant of all negotiations. Armenia was always an “involved
party” but not a warring party. This state of affairs was specified
by an OSCE document in 1992.
Everything changed when ex-leader of Karabakh Robert Kocharjan became
president of Armenia. Yerevan assumed the role of a participant in
the confrontation, and Karabakh was ousted from the process of
negotiations with Yerevan’s consent. As a result, the entire problem
shifted to the plane of a territorial dispute. Needless to say, all
of that weakened Armenia’s position in the international arena.
Restoration of this position is not going to be easy now.
A certain role was also played by official Baku’s dissatisfaction
with the OSCE Minsk Group, which in Azerbaijan’s opinion had not done
anything at all in its 10 years of existence. In fact, this is not
so. The OSCE Minsk Group and its chairmen (Russia, the United States,
and France) offered variants of settlement more than once, but either
Baku turned them down or other intermediaries objected to a too high
level of Karabakh’s involvement in the talks. It was precisely the
“pro-Armenian” bias of the OSCE Minsk Group that irked Azerbaijan and
fortified it in the conviction that the format of the talks should be
changed, and the intermediaries too.
In other words, the Parliamentary Assembly and its decision benefits
Azerbaijan enormously. With this backing, Baku will certainly try to
minimize the role of the OSCE Minsk Group and insist on the transfer
of the debates to the UN (where it can count on the unequivocal
support from most Arab countries) and to the International Court.
Moreover, some specialists fear that the latest diplomatic triumph
may provoke Azerbaijan into trying to settle the problem by sheer
strength of arms again. Atkinson said in his report that there were
three solutions to the problem, including a military solution where
Azerbaijan would send its army to liberate its own territories.
The chance of the use of force is slim, dealing the Karabakh and much
less the Armenian army will be difficult indeed, but official Yerevan
does not rule out this possibility all the same. In any case,
Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisjan warned Azerbaijan the other
day that should it decide to settle the matter by force, it would
have to lament “40% of the territory, not 20%.”
Resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly are essentially
recommendations but Baku, Yerevan, and Stepanakert understand the
moral significance of the document. That is probably why
Nagorno-Karabakh TV went to the trouble of finding an interview with
Atkinson dated 1993 when he was chairman of the commission for
non-CIS countries. Atkinson said after a visit to Nagorno-Karabakh
then that, “Azerbaijan began this war and the European Commission
will not accept it as a member unless the war is stopped.” He said in
the same interview that, “residents of Nagorno-Karabakh have the
right to decide their lot… Our Organization and I myself will do
everything possible to make sure that the Karabakh Armenians live on
their land without duress…” All of that shows that Atkinson’s view
has changed diametrically. Even Western experts ascribe the
Europeans’ eagerness to interfere with the longest conflict in Europe
to economic interests as well as political. The words of Bernard
Fasiet, the new French chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, confirm it.
On a visit to Baku last week he said that, “the unresolved
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict affects stability of the region and
interferes with economic projects on a broader scale including
Central Asia.” It should be noted that Western representatives and
the Russian delegation backed the anti-Armenian resolution of the
Parliamentary Assembly. It means that Armenia does not have allies it
can rely on at this point. References to “oil”, “transport”, and
other interests do no apply. It will be much better to think why the
once unquestionable sympathies with Armenia in Europe and Russia are
gradually giving way to disinterest in the Armenian interests…
Translated by A. Ignatkin